He looked at them in turn. Doris and Epstein merely stared back, with the effect of not taking in what he was saying. But Bangs recoiled.
"No, by God!" he cried. "No! No!"
Laurie went on as if he had not spoken.
"I promised Perkins to be in my rooms at eight o'clock to-morrow morning," he muttered, and they had to strain their ears to catch the words. "I did not promise to be—alive."
This time it was Doris who gasped out something that none of them heard. For a moment Laurie sat silent in his chair, watching her with a strange intentness. Then, in turn, his black eyes went to the faces of Bangs and Epstein. Huddled in the big chair he occupied, the manager sat looking straight before him, his eyes set in agony, his jaw dropped. He had the aspect of a man about to have a stroke. Bangs sat leaning forward, staring at the floor. The remaining color had left his face. He appeared to have wholly forgotten the presence of others in the room. He was muttering something to himself, the same thing over and over and over: "And it's all up to us. It's—all—up—to us."
For an interval which none of the three ever forgot, Laurie watched the tableau. Then, rising briskly, he ostentatiously stretched himself, and in loud, cheerful tones answered Rodney's steady babble.
"Yes, old chap, it's all up to you," he said. "So what do you think of this as a climax for the play?"
Grinning down at his pal, he waited for a reply. It did not come. Epstein was still unable to speak or move. Doris seemed to have heard the words without taking them in. But at last Bangs rose slowly, groped his way to his chum as if through a fog, and catching him by the shoulders looked wildly into his eyes.
"You mean—you mean," he stuttered at last, "that—that—this—was—all—a—hoax?"
"Of course it was," Laurie admitted, in his gayest voice. "It was the climax of the hoax you have played on me. An hour ago Shaw confessed to me how you three arranged this whole plot of Miss Mayo's adventure, so that I should be kept out of mischief and should think I was having an adventure myself. I thought a little excitement was due you in return. How do you like my climax, anyhow? Pretty fair, I call it."